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Asifa SF and APE 2008 Events
This past Sunday was a busy day for me, I got the opportunity to attend two events both in San Francisco, California.
The first event was held at the Balboa Theater in San Francisco, it was a benefit for ASIFA SF, the Bay Area’s Animation Association. I attended the noon presentation of Richard Williams, author of The Animator’s Survival Kit
He showed various clips from his new DVD set The Animator’s Survival Kit – Animated and answered a couple of questions. It was an informative and entertaining presentation. There were some animation techniques that had not occurred to me that made sense, specially after watching the clip.
The second event was the Alternative Press Expo, an event that I have always wanted to attend, simply because I keep hearing about it and it is always after the event. I figured since I was already in San Francisco, why not, so off I went.
It was pretty interesting, a lot of comics and books of all different types, a bit overwhelming… I am not familiar with most of the artists that were present that day (except a few), simply because this is all new to me. It was entertaining to say the least, but i didn’t spend a lot of time, just walked around the whole place checking stuff out here and there. I also saw Enrico Casarosa, Dice Tsutsumi, Ronnie del Carmen and Scott Morse.
Enrico was kind enough to give me a copy of his new book The Venice Chronicles, very nice book, I like it very much. I had read the story online however it is always better to have the book at hand. Even now when I read it I laugh at one thing or another.
Below is a picture of the promotional DVD copy they gave away at that Richard Williams presentation, he was also kind enough to sign his book, the promo DVD leaflet or sketchbooks to those that asked.. yeah I too got a signature, the picture also includes Enrico’s book (psst… buy it!), and the APE pass.
All in all it was a very positive and different day, it was very empowering to be exposed to the work of various different artists. My respect goes to all of you for taking the time to express yourselves.
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SketchCrawl #20
Saturday October 25th was SketchCrawl #20, I decided to stay local a few days prior to the big event.
Since I was staying local I figured it would be a great time for my little dog to spend extra time outside, and perhaps sketch a few things that have caught my attention when I take him for a walk.
I used a micron pen for the first sketch, it is always a little ‘scary’ using a pen because you cannot erase if you make a mistake. I figure by using a pen I would force myself to just sketch and not pay attention to perfection.
After the sketch was completed, i figured I should also add color, I was also curious to see how this sketchbook would handle water. Below is the result.
Where shall we go next?
The second sketch I did was that of an oak tree, but I didnt finish because my little dog was just too impatient, hehe his idea of going out was not one of staying in only one place.
Below are links of some of the materials i used, my portable watercolor (student grade) is a different model.
I buy most of my materials at Blick.
micron pen
Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolors
Niji waterpen (love these)
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Getting ready for Sketchcrawl
For the past month or so, I have spent my evening/night time dealing with website duties, so I have hardly dedicated any time to sketching.
A couple of weeks ago I found myself in front of some trees with no materials and an urge to sketch them. I had read a couple of days prior to that day of a technique for drawing/sketching trees, so I decided to give it a try.
I don’t remember the name of the book but it was mentioning that one should first use dots or little lines to define the outline and work our way into the tree, by drawing more and more lines. Not having had the time to take any art courses (last class I took was back in High School days), I was eager to give this a try.
The image below is the result… I also sketched the trunk of a pine tree, at the beginning it appeared to be a difficult task but as I continued it seemed to take shape and now when I look at the sketch It seems I was able to capture what I was looking at (definitely an improvement I think).
Materials: regular ball point pen and the back/inside of a mailing envelope. (I will scan this later, here is a picture in the mean time).
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Battlestar Galactica Viper
In addition to sketching and learning techniques to improve what I do, I have also started to follow a tutorial to create a 3D model of one of my favorite spaceships, a Battlestar Galactica Viper.
Below is my work in progress.
There is still a bit more to do, but at least it is starting to take shape.
If you have not had a chance to watch this show I recommend it. We started by renting the series via Netflix and eventually moved to watch it online, we also purchased a couple episodes via amazon.com Unbox service.
One of these days we will add the DVD sets to our collection.
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Don’t give up!
Yesterday I was at the store shopping for a chocolate bar (the local market must have about 40 different choices, seriously lol), and overheard a conversation between two employees. They were talking about art appreciation, and the initiation of an artist.
One of the individuals said that people can be attracted to a piece of art, have great taste for art but when they start to produce art, what they produce and what they like and appreciate is so different, and that sometimes it takes years to achieve the level where what the person appreciates and draws and/or produces is at the same level, he also said that people at some point give up the process and quit due to frustration, instead of continuing to try.
I thought I would post this here just in case you the reader happen to be in this situation, which I am guessing happens to all of us at various different times.
On a related note, I found a copy of this book at a local used book store “The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” book by Betty Edwards, along with her workbook. Hmm, it turns out you can get a new book at Amazon.com for about the same price as what I paid for the used book (in the United States).
We already had an older release of the book (not the workbook) so my wife and I are both eager to see what else we can learn from the newer revisions. I can tell you this however, I did an exercise a couple of years ago from this book, in my case I had the opportunity to draw Woody from Toy Story by looking at a drawing that was upside down, I did pretty good actually… pretty close to the original.
If you get a chance check them out, either at your local store or by clicking on the images above.
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Totoro Forest Project
What is the Totoro Forest Project?
It is an international fundraising exhibition/auction event to support the non-profit Totoro no Furusato Foundation (Home of Totoro) established by Hayao Miyazaki.
What is exactly the Totoro no Furusato Foundation?
Well, it is a non-profit foundation as mentioned above created with the purpose to preserve the beautiful natural habitat of Sayama Hills which is located about 24 miles from the Tokyo Japan metropolitan area. Sayama Hills is the location that inspired Hayao Miyazaki to write/create “Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro)” in 1988. If you have not seen this movie, you must see it.
The Auction / Exhibition
Over 200 top international artists that work in different mediums have donated work specially created for this event.
The benefit auction will be held at Pixar Animation Studios on September 6th, 2008, a book will be available at this event as well that contains all the work that was donated. There will also be a special exhibition of selected artwork from the auction at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, California from September 20th to December 7th 2008.
I already spotted a couple of pieces that would be nice to have in my room, who knows maybe I will get to own a piece of artwork, or maybe I wont be so lucky and will have to just donate some money to the cause.
Please share this info with everyone you know, and if you live locally maybe we will run into each other at one of these events.
More information found at: Totoro Forest Project and Enrico Casarosa’s blog announcement.
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